A major step forwards or will it damage the industry; should we be supporting Open Source as a way forward for LIDAR technologies? It could open doors to many – or will it result in the closure of a number of industry players and be too high a price to pay? Or consider Point Cloud Services; are these a way to dramatically improve services for customers or is this just evolving technology?
After much feedback from the LIDAR community, the organisers of the European LiDAR Mapping Forum (ELMF) have selected these two burning issues to be debated in a newly introduced plenary panel debate session, taking place on the opening day of the European LiDAR Mapping Forum, which runs from 29-30th November 2011 in Salzburg, Austria. Experts from all sectors of the LIDAR industry will put forward their opinions for debate with delegates.
The debate has come at a significant time for the industry; when there is a growing trend in the way data is becoming available to a much larger user community through open source and cloud services. This is presenting a whole new set of challenges not only to the existing industry players in terms of ensuring commercial viability of mapping projects, but these also flag up the need to educate a congregation of new users in the benefits and limitations, understanding and management of the LIDAR data they use. The debate should help highlight these complex issues within the community. Read More
